Letter to the Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy written 14.03.1963

Author Roman Ingarden

Category outgoing correspondence

Archive Archive of Science PAN in Cracow

Date of creation 14.03.1963

Related places Cracow

Reference code in archive K_III-26_D_33

Resource type letter

Subject matter organizational issues, publication issues, translations

Field German philosophy, philosophy

Tags #BKF, #Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy, #correction, #Cracow, #ethics, #Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, #Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, #Immanuel Kant, #index, #Irena Krońska, #Leszek Kołakowski, #logic, #Roman Ingarden, #Stefan Dańcewicz, #translation

Prof. R. Ingarden c c c Krakow, 3/14/1953
Krakow, Biskupia 14.
L 18/53

To
c The Editorial Committee of the Library of the Classics of the Philosophy /PAS/
c in WARSAW, Krakowskie Przedmieście St. 79 /PWN/

Dear Ms. Irena,

     c       I have received your last letter / regarding the revision of Kant’s Grundlegung/ on the 10th of the present month, but the revision itself only came yesterday. I looked it over right away and am just about to take it to the Printing House. I only checked the places that I could /as I did not receive the previous revision/, I generally agreed with your suggestions. In particular: p. 9, I left in your correction, agreeing that “Verstand” in this place is not a Kantian terminus technicus / “intellect” /, one should probably translate: “selbst beim bemeinsten Verstand” – as “even the simplest man”, but I think it can remain the way you proposed.
     c       p. 16 I have removed the rearrangement of the word “already” to before “recognize” and I left in the previous wording, because this way a certain ambiguity of the original text is maintained, which does not exclude the interpretation that would be suggested by your rearrangement of words, but which is also the less probable interpretation of the two possible here. It does seem that Kant wanted to write: “which we recognize as already the opposite of duty”, but it is not entirely certain. So let it be […] as it was.
     c       On page 51, in accordance with your original proposal, I wrote “dealing” instead of “to act” only because the original text contains “handle so” and “deine Handlung“, and “handle” has been translated as “deal”, although purely substantively maybe it would be better to say “act”.
     c       So much for the revision. As for the index, I was given one copy of the revision to work on. But I am still wondering whether this index could not be done by the Committee’s office, because right now I have very little time as I am in a rush to finish Spinoza’s Ethics and the next installment of “Critique”, and that work is rather technical. I could send you a list of terms that should be / at minimum / taken into account, maybe that would be enough. Would you agree to that? If not, please send me the volume with Condillac’s Logic as a model of how I should make the index.
     c       As for Ethics, I am glad that Mr. Kołakowski has already agreed to change a large number of terms. Soon I will send part of the typescript with my and Pałacyk’s / Dańcewicz’s / corrections. But I would really like Mr. Kołakowski to refrain from this “include”, which linguistically upsets me.
     c       That is it for now. But one more thing: can a reproduction of the title card of the original Grundlegung be technically done in such a way that only the print itself remains and you cannot see the photograph of the dirty paper. I will ask about it in the Printing House today. As it is – it is very striking.

Cordial greetings and bows